THE
DAY GWYNED SAW THE KING
By
Lewis Smith
Gwyned
Olfur was a Welsh blacksmith of uncertain parentage; he had been found by a
priest on the local cathedral door as a squalling infant. Jymm Olfur, the local smith, had lost his
infant son to crib fever a few days before, and he and his wife had offered to
take the foundling in. Gwyned had
learned to work the bellows almost as soon as he could walk, and by age eight
he was wielding a hammer. At fourteen he
took over most of Jymm’s business, since his adoptive father was growing
gnarled with arthritis at the ripe old age of forty-two. Gwyned was nineteen when old Jymm breathed
his last; his adoptive mother Nell had perished when he was still a lad, so he
was now a skilled blacksmith in a kingdom torn by war. With nothing tying him to the small town of
Padding-on-the Rhys where he had lived his whole life, Gwyned decided to seek
greener pastures – or at least, a more wealthy clientele – elsewhere.
The
Wars of the Roses, as the deadly dynastic struggle between the Yorks and the
Lancasters would be called by historians, was in its twentieth year when Gwyned
settled in the village of Leicester. The local blacksmith had died during an
outbreak of typhus the previous year, along with his two apprentices, and the
town was sore in need of an experienced metal worker. Gwyned settled in quite comfortably, and
married a local girl named Jilly the following year. As King Edward seized control of the throne
and old Henry VI finally met his end – smothered in his bed by the three brothers
of York, according to rumor – Gwyned and Jilly welcomed the birth of a healthy
son. The blacksmith named the boy Jymm,
after his father. The boy turned six
years old in the same year that King Edward suddenly fell ill and died, leaving
the throne to the two young princes born him by his commoner wife, Elizabeth
Woodville.
Not
long after, Richard, the Duke of York, usurped the throne, and the little
princes disappeared without a trace.
Gwyned heard the gossip at the local tavern, but paid little attention
to it. Kings and great nobles came and
went; they fought their wars and lived or died, but unless the conflict came
rolling over the town where Gwyned lived, they mattered not to him. He kept his head down figuratively and
literally, smithing everything from plowshares to horseshoes to halberds and
pikes, according to the demands of his customers.
When Henry Tudor led his
army across the English Channel a couple of years later to challenge Richard,
Gwyned took notice of current events at last, only because they affected his
business. The Earl of Leicester was a
faithful liegeman to King Richard, and Gwyned found himself busily forging
battle axes, halberds, and pikes for several weeks. The insurgent forces drew closer to town, and
word spread like wildfire that King Richard himself would be coming to
Leicester on his way to crush the rebellion once and for all.
Even stolid old Gwyned
found himself a bit excited at the prospect of seeing the king in person. He’d caught a glimpse of the Earl a time or
two, riding by on his way to go hawking in the marshes, but an actual king was
a whole different level of nobility. So
when he heard the shouts of the crowd gathering in the streets, he set his
hammer down and doffed his heavy leather apron and went out to join them.
Richard came riding up at
the head of a long procession of fifty knights and several hundred
men-at-arms. Gwyned had heard whispers
that the king was a hunchback, but as the monarch rode by, he saw no evidence
of it. He supposed the heavy cloak
Richard wore might conceal a minor deformity, but of a certainty the king was
no monster. He had black hair, worn just
above his shoulders in an even cut, and his features were regular – pointed,
aquiline nose, thin lips parted in a slight smile, and large, light brown
eyes. Richard acknowledged the cheers of
the crowd with a gentle wave, and then he and his knights rode on up to White
Boar Inn, while the regular soldiers made camp in the field outside of
town. Gwyned watched as the crowd
dispersed, and then returned to his shop, donned his apron, and returned to his
forge.
Technically, he was a
blacksmith and not a weaponsmith, but his father had taught him how to forge
and sharpen blades, and the demand was so high right now the castle’s armorer
did not resent the competition. Gwyned was
now making his fourth halberd of the day, heating the blade till it glowed red,
and then hammering it flatter and wider to make the flared edge of the
weapon. He enjoyed the rhythm of his
work; hammering, honing, cooling, and heating again. So intent was he on the
job that he did not notice the figure standing in the door of his shop.
“You are the one called
Gwyned?” a soft voice asked.
“So I be,” he
grumbled. “What of it?” Then he turned and saw King Richard standing
in the doorway. The blacksmith’s ruddy
face turned pale, and he dropped to one knee in reverence.
“Begging your pardon, yer
Majesty,” he said. “I dinna know it was
you. Gwyned Olfur, blacksmith of
Leicester, at yer humble service.”
“Captain Flewellin told
me that you are as skilled with weapons and armor as you are with plows and
shovels,” the King said. “I have a job
for you.”
“It will be my honor to
serve ye as me humble skills allow,” Gwyned said, his heart leaping with
excitement. Completing a smithing job
for the King would give him a reputation that no other smith in the district
enjoyed. “What shall I be smithing for
ye?”
“The grip on my shield is
broken,” King Richard said. “We shall be
facing hard fighting near Bosworth on the morrow, and I need my shield to be
steady in my hand. Can you repair it?”
He handed over a brightly
painted metal shield, and Gwyned turned it over to study the grip, which had
been soldered onto the iron band that ran across the center of the shield’s
interior.
“Soldering is difficult
work, sire, and it takes time for the metal to set and harden. I can re-attach this, to be sure, but if you
are to be fighting in the morning you might be better off with another
shield. I can’t guarantee the strength
of the bond when it’s had less than a day to set,” he explained.
“This shield has brought
me luck in every battle,” Richard said.
“It bears my personal coat of arms, and has spared me many a hard
blow. Will you do your best to repair
it?”
Gwyned looked at the
grip, which was worn smooth from use, and at the broken joint where it had been
affixed to the shield.
“I’ll do what I can, an
it please yer Majesty,” he said.
“Good man!” King Richard
clapped him on the shoulder. “I shall
send my squire to fetch it after nightfall.”
Gwyned hated soldering;
it was one of the trickiest aspects of his craft, and especially on a large
piece like the grip. At least, he
thought, one side of the grip was still firmly attached; he wouldn’t have to
hold the other end in place. He pulled a
ceramic blow pipe down from the shelf, and got a small bar of bronze that was
seated next to it. He inserted the
T-joint of the pipe into the hottest part of the fire, and then wrapped a
sheepskin hose around the far end, wetting it and tying it with leather
thongs. He cut an appropriate sized
piece from the bronze bar and held it at the end of an iron rod, then began
vigorously blowing through the hose. The flow of air pulled flames from the
red-hot coal and shot them out the narrow end of the hose. Gwyned blew and sucked in air and blew some
more, until finally the bronze bar began to glow red hot. He used the iron rod to place it at the
broken joint on the back of the shield, and then blew more flames onto it until
the iron itself began to soften. Then he
took a small tap hammer and wedge and shaped the solder into the joint as best
he could, although mixing two metals and getting them to bond was always
difficult. He blew and hammered and
shaped the joint with the rod, until finally he was satisfied with his
work. He still had no idea if the solder
would hold or not, but it was the best he could do.
The repair was barely
complete when a tall, anxious young squire appeared to collect the shield.
“The metal’s barely
cooled,” Gwyned said. “The less it’s
handled before tomorrow, the better.”
“I shall inform His
Majesty,” the squire said.
The next time that Gwyned
saw King Richard, the usurper was being carried into town dead. He had been stripped of his weapons, armor,
and most of his clothing, and a gaping hole in the back of his head was
dripping blood and grey matter onto the cobblestone streets. His body had been pierced through in several
places, and his hands were tied together.
Word was already spreading like wildfire that Henry Tudor had proclaimed
himself as King Henry VII on the battlefield.
“Wonder what happened?”
one of the townspeople said.
“His shield broke in his
hand,” one of the soldiers said, “and that’s when the first blow hit home. After that, he never stood a chance.”
“Shouldn’t have rushed me
work,” Gwyned grunted, and returned to his forge.
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